Ceramic and glass business news of the week

With more than 30 years of experience working at Saint-Gobain, Tom Kinisky was recently named President and CEO. In this role, Tom’s priorities are to attract new and diverse talent, unlock the innovation potential within each and every business, and communicate the positive impact that the Saint-Gobain company makes in North America every day.

Verizon Communications Inc. announced a three-year minimum purchase agreement with Corning Incorporated to provide fiber optic cable and associated hardware for Verizon. The agreement calls for Corning to provide and Verizon to purchase up to 20 million km of optical fiber each year from 2018–2020, with a minimum purchase commitment of $1.05 billion.

Iran’s glassworkers are currently operating at 85% of their production capacity while their output exceeds domestic demand by more than 30%. Faced with lack of domestic demand, the surplus production is mostly exported. However, the industry’s production and export viability is being threatened by imports.

Ilika plc announced the launch of Stereax P180, which extends the operating temperature range of solid-state batteries. The battery has additional benefits of support for extended temperature ranges required for many Industrial IoT and automotive end applications.

Superior Technical Ceramics now offers high purity, large scale alumina blanks to support up to 450 mm semiconductor needs, as well as sizable alumina and zirconia tubes for the oil/gas and energy industries.

Zeiss opened a new Microscopy Customer Center Europe at Oberkochen on April 24, 2017. Users from industry and academia can try out correlative workflows between light, electron, X-ray, and advanced 3-D microscopy technologies in a single location.

Bathroom products maker Jaquar & Co. Pvt. Ltd. has acquired a sanitaryware factory from Euro Ceramics Ltd. for $15.5 million. The plant, located at the Bhachau area of Kutch district in Gujarat, is spread over 17 acres. Jaquar operates five factories in India.

A government oil company in the United Arab Emirates says it has opened the country’s first solar-powered gas station in Dubai. The Dubai-owned Emirates National Oil Company said the service station is covered with solar panels that can generate up to 120 kilowatt hours.

Quantum Materials Corp and Freschfield PLC announced the execution of a funded collaboration agreement by which Quantum will work with Freschfield to integrate Quantum Materials Corp advanced nanomaterials including quantum dot-based solar photovoltaics into Freschfield’s SmartSkinz.

JEOL Resonance Inc. and Mestrelab Research S.L. announced a new technology partnership—they are developing a fully automated signal acquisition and qNMR analysis capability, which will provide the full power of correctly executed qNMR to all users in a single, highly automated environment.

National University Corporation, the University of Tokyo, and AGC Asahi Glass have partnered to launch a new social cooperation program, in which the entire university department will engage in comprehensive collaborative research in partnership with AGC.